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English: MLA Citation

A guide to finding and accessing books, magazines, DVD's, websites, scholarly articles, newspaper articles, eBooks, and other resources on English literature and composition provided by HCTC Libraries.

Basics

Formal source citation is a requirement for all college writing assignments. There are various systems of citation available for different fields of study, such as APA, CSE, and Chicago Style. English courses tend to utilize the guidelines established by the Modern Language Association (MLA), which include two basic features: in-text citations and works cited pages. It is critical that college students learn to navigate the fundamentals of MLA citation so they can avoid plagiarizing.

PLAGIARISM is the act of passing someone else's work off as your own, which is a mistake that carries some serious consequences. Students caught plagiarizing can fail assignments or classes -- they might even be expelled from school.

Students can avoid plagiarism by submitting original work and by properly documenting their sources of information. There are three key steps to documenting (citing) sources:

  • creating a works cited page
  • summarizing or paraphrasing key ideas
  • formatting in-text citations
See the KCTCS Student Code of Conduct section 2.3 about plagiarism.

For more detailed information about MLA works cited pages, review the PowerPoint attached below next to the red document icon.

Citation Generators

There are many citation generators available for free online, but a word of caution: even though these can ease the struggle of citation, many generators respond to the information you give them. If you input incorrect or incomplete information, your citations will be wrong. If your English instructor assigns a format guide, learn to use it properly.

That being said, included below is a brief list of links that may prove helpful when navigating citation format.